Taliban warns US of bloody summer campaign in Afghanistan

Kandahar (Afghanistan), May 5 (ANI): Taliban militants fighting in Afghanistan have warned American troops of a bloody summer campaign with the rise in the number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombings and assassinations.

Taliban fighters say they are planning more staged ambushes in the rural areas of Aghanistan and a rash of multiple co-ordinated suicide bombings and assassinations in urban Kandahar.

Designed to spread terror across the most densely populated areas of this province, the militants’ ramped-up battle plan is a response to the impending surge of US troops and retrenching of other forces here, Globe and Mail reported.

“We have new plans, new tactics,” a Taliban logistics director based in the volatile Panjwai District says. He recently returned from high-level meetings with militant commanders in Quetta, Pakistan, and spoke about plans on condition his name remains unpublished.

“The new strategy of fighting is very important for us. It will be very dangerous for the government and for foreign troops,” he said.

Taliban’s plan will be carried out by young fighters who, in recent weeks, have been trickling into the rural areas west of Kandahar city, armed with new machine guns and sustained by villagers’ donations of dry bread and watery yogurt.

Out-powered in rural areas by military weaponry, Taliban fighters there will carry machine guns and attempt to sharpen the results of their ambushes, but they will rely more on land mines and improvised explosive devices, sources say.

Inside the city, insurgents plan to stage more frequent multi-bomber suicide attacks and targeted assassinations. Government officials and civilians who appear to be in favour of the current government regime will be hunted with new intensity.

“If a man or woman is working with the government, or they are supporters of the government or of the foreigners, we want to kill them,” said one Taliban organizer. “We want to put the pressure on Kandahar city. And we want to dissolve the government.” (ANI)